Conformity Vs. Individuality In Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead

Individuality vs. Conformity
Are people really ‘individuals’, or are we all just individual together? The controversy of conformity and individuality is one that been continuously in the spotlight, and Colin Wilson makes a profound and striking statement against men and women alike. “The average man is a conformist, accepting miseries and disasters with the stoicism of a cow standing in the rain.” He makes a bold statement here, one that the book The Fountainhead can help overturn. One of the central ideas that is celebrated continuously throughout The Fountainhead is that of individualism. The celebration of being your own person is probably Ayn Rand's most dominant message in this novel. When Ellsworth Toohey confronts Roark and asks what …show more content…
He is a man that is not trying any harder to be different from society than he is to try and be a conformist among people. Howard Roark is celebrated as the novel's hero not because he changed the way his adversaries were thinking, but because he in the end is free to be himself and act according to his own ways. He is not the hero of this novel because he changed the way his enemy, namely Toohey, but rather because he didn't let Toohey change him. Toohey is a character that takes advantage of ‘flockers’ or people who need other people to feel like someone. He takes advantage of the cows standing in the rain. Kind of like birds of a feather stick together, only people need the idea that they are apart of something to feel as if they are finally solely themselves. When Toohey asks Roark what he thinks of him, his reply does not bring surprise to the reader because they know Roark is going to truly be himself, and only Howard Roark at all times. He is not going to waste his time thinking or worrying about anyone else because is has nothing to do with Howard Roark being Howard Roark. In order for someone to be a true individual, they must be a little selfish in what they do in order to truly be